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A piece I've been working on for my psychology presentation. We're supposed to pick an area of psychology, write a paper on it and--if we wanted to--create some piece of art to go along with it. I decided to do mine on dream symbolism.

There's this nightmare I have once or twice a year. It's always the same, with a few minor details that alternate.

It always starts out with my family and I--always the current ages that we are, never in the future or past--going to one of the camp sites that we used to visit when we went camping regularly. We either stay in a tent or a cabin, that's one of the minor details. Things are going all fine and dandy until nightfall (always). And around that time, we suddenly hear howling somewhere in the woods. And just minutes after that, something's trying to break into our tent/cabin.

Eventually, it does break in--this GIANT werewolf. And we all manage to escape except one of us. The person who doesn't get out changes every time with the exception of myself; I always manage to make it out. But the rest of us flee into the woods and somehow separate while we run through the trees, the werewolf trailing just feet behind us. For a while, it's just a race through the trees until we run into a maze made out of these huge cement pipes.

And as I duck through them and run down the tunnels, trying desperately to locate my parents or sisters, I can hear the werewolf finding them one by one and ripping them up, every sound echoing off the walls of the cement tubes. And then everything goes quiet, almost always for a full 30 seconds.

The nightmare always ends the same. I run through one tube and hit the wall of the next, leaning against it as I catch my breath and try to come to terms that I'm the only one left. And then I hear this faint growl. When I turn my head, all I can see are the werewolf's yellow eyes staring at me from the end of one of the tunnels. I wake up just as it plunges forward.

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I really hate having this dream. >xD;; I always wake up short of breath and sweating. And a few times, I've had to go and check to see that Katie and Becca are still in their beds and knock on my parent's bedroom door just to hear dad to yell at me to go back to bed. UUUGUH.

But yeah. Symbolism I've found in a nutshell:

Werewolf: "To see a werewolf in your dream, indicates that something in your life is not what it seems. It is symbolic of fear, repressed anger, and uncontrollable violence."

Yellow: "if the dream is an unpleasant one, then the color represents deceit, disgrace, betrayal, cowardice and sickness. You have a fear or an inability to make a decision or to take action. Your desire to please others is at the risk of sacrificing your own needs and happiness. As a result, you are experiencing many setbacks."

Woods: "To see the woods in your dream, represents life, fertility, rejuvenation, and spring. Alternatively, it symbolizes the unknown and unconscious. You may be discovering your instinctual nature."

Afraid: "To dream that you are afraid, indicates that you are experiencing self-doubt and feelings of incompetence in your waking life. You may be feeling a lack of control. Anger often masquerades as fear, so also consider issues about which you are angry about in your waking life"

..... 8] SO YEAH.

Apparently this dream likes to come along when I think someone's deceiving me or I feel I'm being treated wrongly, but I'm putting someone else's feelings before my own anyway. And I need to hurry up and put my foot down before I morph into a raging beast and destroy everything. Maybe. I don't know.

It'd be nice if my subconscious could tell me that without murdering my entire family.